Unfiltered for Canon

This was my capstone project for my university degree. This was done in a duo with Alicia Moorefield. We had the freedom to do whatever we wanted in this project, quite a daunting task! We both wanted to make something that would have a positive impact and aimed at our own generation, which made us turn to social media.

We both have felt and know many people who feel the negative effects of social media. We wanted to try make a campaign to get people off their phones and start to live in the moment. This led to us choosing Canon to be our client as we recognised a photography company could communicate this message well. We created a reverse brief for Canon so we always had a guide to come back to.

The goal, to get our generation to take a step back from social media and live more full lives. So Unfiltered was born. We want Gen Z to be more present in their own lives. You take a high-quality amazing photo with a Canon, and you put the camera back down. No pressure to post, no anxiety felt.

We created five deliverables for this campaign. YouTube and TikTok video ads, website banners, a social media strategy, a guerrilla installation and an event. To spread awareness of the event we created street posters, the only print that we had.

The video is juxtaposing the anxiety people feel from social media with the feeling of peace using a Canon camera and living in the moment gives you. We’re showing the audience that Canon can help you get out from the hold social media has on Gen Z.

In our website banners we are continuing to juxtapose between social media and being unfiltered with Canon. We separate it into three blocks, a phone with a small photo surrounded by black space, the photo in full high definition with unfiltered over it, and a call to action with the canon logo. We are showing that Canon can take beautiful photos without being surrounded by a black cloud of negative energy you get from social media.

Our social media campaign is gathering content creators who make high quality content. We are calling them our Canon Creators. This is to associate Canon with these creators, they were chosen as they share content because they are passionate about it. We will also use them to hold workshops where they teach people how to use DSLRs. These creators include Roman Films, Jack Krzyick, Tyson Drowe and Sam Johnson.

Our event is a day where people hand in their phones for a Canon camera, returning the camera for their phone later in the day. They can then keep the photos that they took. We want to push a day of experiencing a day of being offline and present for our target audience.

Our guerrilla installation is a massive camera placed in the CBD. People can take photos then print off the ones they want to keep. By doing this, we are doing something that will get a lot of traction on social media. Having a printed photo is encouraging our target audience to keep a physical memory and not feel like it must posted online.

Too much writing? Probably! If you got to the end I owe you a beer.